Week 21 - Dye workshop and pattern cutting

Dye Workshop

This workshop allowed us to understand how direct dyes work with a variety of different fabrics and their contents. The fabrics we were working with were:

cotton and silk

viscose and linen

silk and viscose Velvet

viscose crape jorgette

Put spoonful of dye in warm water and heat up on hob, make sure all the dye as dissolved within the solution.

Pour warm water into another bowl and add salt. Heat up until all salt is dissolved and add this to the dye. The salt within the solution helps to react better with the direct dyes.

Then make sure fabric is damp before adding to the dye. Wait until the fabric has transformed into the  desired tone of  colour.

Rinse fabric under cold water to ensure the reaction is still not taking place

Wait until dry.

Here are my samples which I produced from direct dyes. You can achieve darker tones by leaving the fabric in the dye for a longer period of time. The fabric which I feel worked the best was velvet, It really took to the fabric and looks very rich in colour.

The process involved spoon in the powder into a bowel and mixing it with water whilst stirring on the hob to allow all the colour to dissolve within the liquid, salt watered mixture was also added to the dye as this works well when working with direct dyes. When the fabric had been dyed then cold water needs to be used to stop further reaction from taking place.